Bits and Pieces
by rijane
Summary: A series of unrelated MickBeth shorts.
1. Coming Clean

**Coming Clean**

The door clicked shut and Beth heard his light steps. She'd taken one half the headphones out hours ago, pounding music in one ear and waiting for him in the other. Her hands stilled from the keyboard and her lungs finally pumped without effort.

"Beth, what are you doing up?" Mick froze.

"Working," she lied. She saw the blood. Wiped but smeared at his mouth. His shirt was stained, black in the shadows. She saw his whitewashed eyes, his biting teeth. Everything he tried to hide in the light of day.

"Let me clean up," Mick darted away from her.

Beth shut the laptop lid, chasing him softly. She found him in the darkened bathroom, hunched over the sink with gulps of mouthwash agitating, water splashing over his face. Spigot on full force, he scrubbed his hands. Not with their soap, but with the bitter bar below, its pungent smell and hard granules moving against his skin.

"Need some help?"

He dropped the soap as she flicked on the lights.

"I didn't mean to keep you up," he fished for it. "I should have called."

"It looks like you were busy." She moved to him, brushed a thumb over the faint rust stains. "Yours or theirs?"

"Theirs." Beth put prodding fingers to his face where echoes of cuts and stabs had recently faded. "Mostly."

"Sit." Mick followed orders and sat with relief on the toilet. Beth quickly found a soft sponge and dialed the water back to a steady stream.

Starting at his face, she wiped away the blood in circles, rinsed, repeated until the water ran clear.

Then her fingers pulled at his buttons, and opened his shirt to see the mosaic of blood left behind, swipes and scratches healed. As she tried to ease the soaked fabric off, he winced. Beth snaked behind him. The gash was raw and wide, streams of dark blood falling now that his shirt didn't stem the flow.

"What happened?" Beth tried not to make it sound like an accusation.

"I wasn't looking," he shrugged and winced again. "A silver knife."

"Silver?" She tickled the edges of it, trying to wash away the blood without making more. A squeeze of cool water washed away the worst and left him wet.

"He didn't know. Just lucky." But Mick was not. It was deep.

Beth wrapped around him and set the sponge in the sink, shut the water off.

"It's not healing, Mick," she shifted in front of him. He moved as though to stand, but she blocked him, gave a gentle push back down. Mick looked away. "No."

She settled on his lap, a hand to his cheek. He was cold, always so cold, and Beth wanted to warm him from the inside out.

"Mick, you've had 24 years. Let me take care of you for once," Beth whispered. They paused and she swore she heard the blood leaving him.

At last he nodded. She tangled a hand in his dripping curls and, a breath of him, pulled his lips against the rush of her skin.

He held.

Then bit.

She felt her blood flow and his stop, a hand hushed over his back, the skin knitting to perfection. He finished with a last lap of her.

Mick tucked into her, still.

Beth moved first, slipping to her knees, and untied boots, pulled at socks. Then she pulled him to the shower.

This time she held him and let the water flow.


	2. Feel

Feel

He was thumbs, all thumbs. Every ridge and swirl imprinted on her skin. She could recognize the slightest scratch as they moved over her.

He was at her ankle, testing the tendon. Bending her knee to hear the pops, gracing up her thigh and exploring where nerves and blood lingered between bone and skin. He bent in half and put lips on the vein. That vein. He knew the names of all of them, but the only one he said was "hers".

He tucked his nose to her neck. She curled against him and he wrapped around her, settled his hands below her stomach, just above the curve and deep, thumbs burrowed in the dark thatch.

She shivered and he froze.

"Cold?"

"Never."

His lips danced words over her neck. She felt the music's hum, but his voice ebbed between the lines.

"Time on my hands…in my arms… love in view… moments to spare… time on my hands and you in my arms…"

Arms settled above her breasts in the hot spot of her heart and thumbs balanced on opposite ledges of her collarbone. She pulsed slow against him.

"Are you?"

"Hmmm?" the m's kissed her skin.

"Cold. Are you cold?"

"Not here. Not now."

"But… other places?"

A beat.

"No."

"Hot?"

He rumbled, changed the topic.

"You took care of that."

She wiggled and pushed.

"So, what do you feel, Mick?"

He moved a hand to her face, chill fingers on her cheek and his thumb gliding over the soft pink.

"You, Beth. I feel you."


	3. Hate

I hate you.

I hate the careful lines I walk around you, the hurt in your eyes and the flinch on your face.

I hate that I scream your name nightly.

I hate that there is nothing in me you can't touch.

I hate you in the night when you leave me sleeping.

I hate you every morning you aren't there.

I hate that I don't hate you.

That love is all I can bear.


	4. Let Go

Title: Let Go

Rating: PG

He was going to kill her. Because she was going to kill him.

Her fingers through her wash of golden hair, her half-open mouth, the smooth round of her bare shoulders -- freckles scattered, one leg tucked while the other lackadaisically bounced against the stool, pads of her feet pulsing a tinny thud in counter time to her heart.

Every single movement designed to bring the lust -- blood and otherwise -- to the surface. His gums ached, his groin ached, his hands reached for her.

He hadn't touched her, but Mick could never let her go.


	5. Scars

Title: Scars

Rating: PG-13

Mick sucked the taste of streetwalker from his lips and teeth as dirty brick bit into his back. An unexpected door smacked open, someone fanning the cool evening breeze into a dim room beyond.

There was a jumble of bodies shrouded in smoke. They were past youth, covered with faded scars and tattoos, and muscles under the snug layer of fat. No guns, but plenty of trigger fingers.

It hit him the way these new smells always did, rolling through him -- sweaty cards and booze and sulfa powder drifting out to blood and stone and jizz.

It carried him back 20 years, to Barnes. To pretty nurses and their strained smiles. To young men with old eyes in squeaking wheelchairs and soaking bandages. To the goddamned ringing clock tower and moans all through the night.

That room was now this room, with damaged men and war stories. It was where he was supposed to be, if not for Coraline.

It was his blister burn, the dark half moon on his forearm that was Mike O'Malley. Too many micks, Art joked. The private holding his guts in with one hand and waving his hot gun at Mick with the other. There was a sour odor, then a hot pork smell before Mick matched his scream.

It was the shrapnel chewed criss crosses, the last good thing he gave his friend. When she ran claws over his back, for a second he could feel it again. He opened for her and closed tight again and again, perfect and clean for Coraline.

The door shut again, leaving the smell of death and Mick's own decayed delight. The vampire - no scars, no man left behind.


	6. Spam

Title: Spam

Rating: G

Author's Note: Crackfic at the request of Hydriotaphia.

"Josef? Mick started softly, then revisited the new human urge to yell. He tried to lower his blood pressure as he stared at the plate in front of him, stomach growling. "Josef!"

"What?" the vampire appeared, clutching a bleeding blonde.

"I could have gone to Musso's," Mick said. "You said anything I wanted. The best Kostan can buy."

"I got everything on the list," Josef looked down. Strawberries with aged balsamic, polenta, pinot noir. "And then some."

Mick pointed to the quivering pinkish substance.

"What is that?"

"Um," the blonde spoke up. "Spam."

"What the FUCK is spam? Can't you read? I wrote 'ham' – 'HAM'!"

"Oh," Josef took a last lick of his dinner. "No wonder Emeril looked so funny."


	7. Cold

Beth thought she'd be brave. She'd bite her lip and soldier on. Never thought she'd be a screamer, that when the pain ripped through her she would cry like a little girl. Even though Mick liked to remind her that the way she lived her life, she was bound to get shot, stabbed, or worse, for an instant she was shocked, hurt that it had finally happened. As though this wasn't a matter of the law of averages, it was an intentional act by the universe to remind her that unlike Mick, unlike Josef, Guillermo and all the vampires who peopled her life lately, Beth was breakable.

She felt those breaks with every breath, the sharp godawful stab of pain that brought tears and took her words.

"Mick," she whimpered. She knew where the bullet was, low and deep and still hot, burning her from the inside out now. She couldn't stop the tears. Josh hadn't cried. Josh. Oh god, Josh, Beth wept. Mick, she knew, would save her. He'd come and then she'd have her own bullet for the jar, maybe start her own jar.

She felt sticky. Her hands covered in it. Ought to hold it in, but it hurt. There was a strange noise and Beth tried to look around for Mick, for his eyes in the dark beyond, but the world had gone white.

She tried to call for Mick again and realized it was her. The noise was her. Not crying anymore, but a low keen she couldn't stop.

"Mick. Miiii-" his name turned into a moan until her voice failed her. Beth waited for him, closed her blind eyes. He would come. Battered and bruised and victorious, Mick would save her any way he could. Mick always saved her.

Cold came over her and Beth knew he'd come. It felt good for once, calming the heat of pain, and in the dark she let his cold hold her tight.


End file.
